Link: Comparison chart: The Top 7 teams in college football

We need to force more turnovers and protect the ball when we have it (obvious). Other than that everything looks good. We have more explosive offense plays than Oregon and Baylor lol

Minus the TOs life's great!

WMack4Bama said:

From Pete Roussel

Who are the contenders? Who are the pretenders?
To see how the Top 7 teams in the nation compare statistically against FBS teams only, we have created a chart that includes several critical factors as it relates to winning.

Again, this chart only takes into consideration the statistics against other FBS teams. For example, we are not including statistics for Florida State in their game against The Citadel.

It's hard to believe that Alabama is -3 in turnover margin. The same can be said for Florida State.

Impressively, Mike Stoops' defense in Norman has created eleven takeaways. No matter the talent of the Crimson Tide offense, give credit to Lane Kiffin because Alabama has converted 62% of third-down opportunities with a first-year starting quarterback.

Can Ole Miss contain the explosive plays of the Alabama offense? The Crimson Tide has 32 rushes for 10+ yards. Wow.
The gray areas indicate impressive marks.

Click to expand...

And red zone TD% (offense) has always baffled me why that is important. I mean, does a TD from the red zone count more points than a TD from outside the red zone? Who cares where the TD comes from. It's a more important stat to "score" from the red zone. Not whether or not it's a TD or a FG.

CrimsonForce said:

We need to force more turnovers and protect the ball when we have it (obvious). Other than that everything looks good. We have more explosive offense plays than Oregon and Baylor lol

Click to expand...

The turnover margin is really the only thing keeping Alabama from looking like a #1 team. If Alabama can start to turn that around, and doesn't have any major weaknesses exposed on offense or defense, they're going to be nearly impossible to beat.

Just Win said:

And red zone TD% (offense) has always baffled me why that is important. I mean, does a TD from the red zone count more points than a TD from outside the red zone? Who cares where the TD comes from. It's a more important stat to "score" from the red zone. Not whether or not it's a TD or a FG.

Click to expand...

Me too, especially now that so many TD's are +20 yards. The same can be said for third down conversions: some teams don't have many thrid downs.

Third down % - both O and D - is key; and we're tops in both among these teams. We can sustain drives on O and kill them on D. Redzone % also stands out.

Hard to imagine that Oregon hasn't turned the ball over once. Crazy good stat for them.

Just Win said:

And red zone TD% (offense) has always baffled me why that is important. I mean, does a TD from the red zone count more points than a TD from outside the red zone? Who cares where the TD comes from. It's a more important stat to "score" from the red zone. Not whether or not it's a TD or a FG.

Click to expand...

It's a measure of how effective your offense is at getting touchdowns once they cross the 20 yard line. Obviously,iIt's much better to get touchdowns than kick field goals (or not even score) once you're in the red zone. Not getting that 4-7 points once or twice a game in the RZ can cost a team a game. Yes, you can score from further out, but it's harder to rely on the explosive TD plays.

That said, like almost every other stat, I'm not sure it's all that telling of a stat at this point in the season since sample sizes are still fairly small and, in many cases, a bit skewed.

KrAzY3 said:

The turnover margin is really the only thing keeping Alabama from looking like a #1 team. If Alabama can start to turn that around, and doesn't have any major weaknesses exposed on offense or defense, they're going to be nearly impossible to beat.

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I listened to a little of Colin Cowherd yesterday, he was talking about other coaches' opinion of this year's version of Bama.

Saban's been winning big depending on an outstanding defense, with an offense that is able to get the job done. Now, it looks like the offense is clicking as well as the defense usually does...and this has other coaches very discouraged. I gathered that they agreed with Krazy's point, if we can stop turning over the ball, we will be nearly impossible to beat.

Just Win said:

And red zone TD% (offense) has always baffled me why that is important. I mean, does a TD from the red zone count more points than a TD from outside the red zone? Who cares where the TD comes from. It's a more important stat to "score" from the red zone. Not whether or not it's a TD or a FG.

Click to expand...

Many(most?) defenses employ something of a bend/don't break philosophy between the 20's/30's to protect against the deep ball. Inside the 20 things get tight and require precision on offense. Once inside the 30, and especially inside the 20, the FG is almost automatic so there's not much point in including FG's in any metric. The higher the RZ TD%, the more efficient/dominate the offense, typically.

Redwood Forrest said:

Me too, especially now that so many TD's are +20 yards. The same can be said for third down conversions: some teams don't have many thrid downs.

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Both RZ TD% and third down conversion % show how a team is able to finish a drive.

Just Win said:

And red zone TD% (offense) has always baffled me why that is important. I mean, does a TD from the red zone count more points than a TD from outside the red zone? Who cares where the TD comes from. It's a more important stat to "score" from the red zone. Not whether or not it's a TD or a FG.

Click to expand...

It also says something about how balanced your offense may be. Between the 20's offenses can stretch you horizontally and vertically, but inside the 20's, especially the nearer the goal line you get the less an offense can stretch the defense vertically.

So it's a good measure of a team's ability to smash mouth near the goal line. Good spread teams often can run with power like Auburn did last year, but if a spread team can't that's when you see a team on the 1 yard line in a shot gun formation trying to pass.

And while all these teams have a good percentage in the red zone for scoring tds, when a spread team who doesn't run as well meets a team with a stiff defense they may struggle to score in the rz.

KrAzY3 said:

The turnover margin is really the only thing keeping Alabama from looking like a #1 team. If Alabama can start to turn that around, and doesn't have any major weaknesses exposed on offense or defense, they're going to be nearly impossible to beat.

Click to expand...

If Bama wins the turnover margin against Ole Miss, then I suspect that we might win going away.

GP for Bama said:

If Bama wins the turnover margin against Ole Miss, then I suspect that we might win going away.

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TO margin may not even matter. Still though, we need to limit them considerable regardless of how good we are. That being said most came in one game that wasn't as close as the score said (Floirida). I trust that the team has fixed them.

runtheoption22 said:

3rd down % is huge in this day and age of HUNH offenses.....they can't score if they aren't on the field.

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Auburn basically rode a solid 3rd down defense % and a good redzone defense % to the national championship game. They had awful defensive numbers except those two stats and were able to get to the champ game.

Converting third downs and stopping teams on third down is absolutely critical to the game.